Supplemental Material

Below I’ve included a link that shows a powerful piece of graffiti called “Son of Protagoras”. The work was carried out by the famous French Graffiti artist MTO, and is located in Belfast. Click the link to find out more about this incredible piece. I have also included a link to the book The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich. This is the book that I quote in relation to the thoughts of Seneca.

reflection

Today marks the beginning the journey proper. I wanted to start with three of the oldest arguments against God. These three arguments can be described as the argument of improbability, incoherence and irrelevance. And each of them have evolved and developed in fascinating ways over the history of thought. I call the two fragments of Protagoras an ‘argument of improbability’ because he is basically saying that our views on the world are a reflection of our inner life. They reflect our hopes, fears and dreams, and therefore are unlikely to be correct. If they are correct, we would just happen to be very lucky that our inner disposition happened to reflect the nature of reality. In addition to this, he points out that the difficulty of the question of God, combined with the shortness of life, leads to it being highly unlikely we would get to a true insight. 

I call the argument of Epicurus an ‘argument of incoherence’ because he is attempting to show that the classical metaphysical notion of God is as impossible as the idea of a square triangle. Therefore it can be rejected a priori. 

Lastly, I refer to the argument of Seneca as an ‘argument of irrelevance’, because he aims to show that there is no need to worry ourselves over the question of God once we have achieved a type of Stoic Enlightenment.

Another way to break the three positions down would be with the words 'agnostic’, ‘atheistic’ and ‘ignostic' In the first you can't know, in the second, a specific conception is rejected a priori, in the third, the question becomes superfluous.

The main reason for starting this week with these three thinkers however is to show how they start a type of dialectic journey by beginning to question the beliefs of the day. Instead of thinking of these individuals as making definitive statements designed to stop a conversation, I hope that you can see how they are actually sparking off a conversation. A conversation that has been going on ever since, and will continue long after we are gone.

Ancient roots of Atheism

Protagoras, Epicurus and Seneca were important ancient philosophers. Protagoras (490–420 BC) was called the first professional sophist by Plato. Nothing of his work remains. The fragments we do have all come from other philosophers who are quoting his work, in a critical manner.

Protagoras is best known for the following claims (1) that the subject is the measure of all things (2) that it was always possible for a skilled orator to make the weaker side of an argument appear stronger and (3) that it is not possible to know if the gods exist. In short, he is most famous for articulating a type of perspectivalism (a position that attempts to take seriously the subjective side of truth claims). Something that we see explored by more contemporary philosophers such as Nietzsche and Kant.

Epicurus (341–270 BC) founded the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments of his 300 works remain. Like Protagoras, much of what is known about him derives from later philosophers.

For Epicurus, philosophy involves helping people lead a happy life, characterized by ataraxia—peace and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain—and by living a self-sufficient life with friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are measures of what is good and evil; death is the end and should not be feared; the gods neither reward nor punish; the universe is infinite and eternal; and events are based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.

Seneca (4 BC-AD 65) was a Roman thinker who is widely considered to be the most influential of the Stoic philosophers. Seneca wrote on a wide variety of issues and is often read because of his wisdom on how to live well.

By offering a glimpse into how these individuals viewed the subject of God, we can see the beginnings of religious critique.